8 Important Data Points in Mary Meeker Internet Trends Report 2016

The annual Internet Trends report by Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers partner and a longtime tech industry analyst, Mary Meeker is out. According to the report, the growth of internet businesses is slowing down, and image sharing and messaging apps are the future. The report also predicts Android and Apple sales, and give insights on the growth of online advertising. It also talks about the growth of Internet and smartphone users globally, with massive growth seen in India.

Global internet crossed the mark of 3 billion users, which is 42% of the world population. The growth in global internet users is flat, with 9% YoY growth compared to 9% YoY growth last year. If we exclude India from this, the growth rate comes down to 7% YoY. (Slide 5-6)

In India the internet user growth is accelerating. Internet user base in the country saw a growth of 40% YoY compared to 33% YoY last year. At the end of quarter 4 of 2015, India had 277 million internet users which accounts to 22% market penetration. India surpassed USA to become the second largest internet user market, behind China. (Slide 7-8)

The growth in global smartphone users is slowing down, with 21% YoY as opposed to 31% YoY last year. Global smartphones units shipments is also slowing dramatically. The growth rate dropped down to 10% YoY compared to 28% YoY last year. The largest smartphone market in terms of users was Asia Pacific with 52% of the global share, and saw a drop in smartphone user growth to 23% YoY as opposed to 35% YoY last year. (Slide 9-11)

Apple shipments will continue its downward trend and might decline 11% this year but the Android shipment to increase by 7% this year. Furthermore, according to report, Apple’s average selling price can fall by 9% ($717 to $651), the highest ever fall seen by Apple. This could be because of the cheap iPhone SE, as the company plans to acquire more users. The average selling price of an Android phone will drop to $208 globally. (Slide 12)

According to report, there are around 220 million ad-blocking software users on desktop, and 420 million users on mobile, with growth rate of 16% YoY on desktop and 94% YoY on mobile. China, India, and Indonesia are the biggest users of ad-blocking softwares. (Slide 47)

USA internet advertising growth gained momentum. The growth rate was 20% YoY compared to 16% YoY last year. The report claims that Internet advertising is dominated largely by Google and Facebook, with almost 76% of US online advertising shared between these two big companies. Desktop ads grew only by 5% whereas Mobile ads grew by 66%. Compared to USA online advertising was also bigger in China, with 42% of total ad spend (TV+Online+Print Media+More) compared to 39% in the USA. (Slide 42-44, 169)

Messaging continues to grow rapidly as messages become more expressive, with Whatsapp leading the battle with close to 1 billion users, Facebook Messenger and WeChat are on second and third positions respectively. (Slide 99)

Voice based search is gaining search traffic. According to the report, in five years time, at least 50% of all searches are going to be either images or speech. (Slide 125)